1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing device, and particularly to a printing device comprising a stencil printing device for performing stencil printing using a UV curable ink, and to an ultraviolet irradiation apparatus connected to a paper discharge opening of the printing device and performing ultraviolet irradiation onto a discharged printed matter, including a stencil-printed matter.
2. Description of the Related Art
A stencil printer (referred to as “stencil printing device” hereinafter” is widely used for printing various distributed papers and documents in educational markets, public offices, partnership organizations, hospitals and the like, and for obtaining a number of printed matters or a number of copies of printed matters such as newspaper inserts, classifieds, messages inside private companies, because the stencil printing device is capable of printing at high speeds at low running cost. The printing ink employed here is the one which normally is not solidified in the atmosphere, and troubles such as cleaning the print drum portion every time the printing device is used can be eliminated so that anyone can easily operate the printing device anytime. Since the stencil ink is designed such that it penetrates a piece of printing paper (an example of a sheet-like recording medium; referred to as “paper” hereinafter) and is supposedly dried, the surface of the printed matter easily becomes messy if rubbed by hand due to the undried ink. This fact has been pointed out as a significant problem of the stencil-printing device from the past, but no effective countermeasures have been implemented.
As a conventional printing device for improving the drying performance of printed matters, for example, Publication of Examined Utility Model Application No. H4-35188, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H5-64878 and the like proposes a stencil printing device designed for UV curable ink, which comprises an ultraviolet (abbreviated as “UV” hereinafter) irradiation apparatus and performs stencil printing using a UV curable ink.
However, the stencil-printing device disclosed in the abovementioned Examined Utility Model Application Publication No. H4-35188 is a stencil-printing device designed for UV curable ink, in which only a UV curable ink (referred to as “UV ink” hereinafter) can be used, thus, if printing with non-UV ink was necessary, another stencil printing device designed for non-UV ink was required. On the other hand, the printing device disclosed in the abovementioned Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H5-64878 can perform printing with normal inks, but the paper conveying means has to be removed, and operations/performances on the device were extremely troublesome.